When video games went mainstream, the Pentagon realized their potential as a promotional tool, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on war-based games. Now the wheel has come full circle as they use game-style interfaces for real-life tools of war.
by Marijam Did
Part 4 - Gamification
Arms companies and various advertising agencies were not the only ones beginning to sense that digital games were worth investigating. The dopamine hit that reaches the brain after a correctly solved puzzle or a well-placed shot could be applied to areas other than mere entertainment. In 2008, the concept of gamification began to surface in the entrepreneurial and corporate worlds.
Other fields had already adapted elements from video games — for instance, some work in learning disabilities and scientific visualization comes from user interface inventions in gaming. Venture capitalists soon started to experiment with incorporating social, rewarding aspects of games into their software. Elements of game design that were originally intended to increase the satisfaction of a player experience, such as points, badges, leaderboards, performance graphs, and slick button design and audio effects, could be extended to other digital implementations.
In their 2014 book The Gameful World, editors Steffen P. Walz and Sebastian Deterding chronicle the wide adoption of gamification. According to the authors, with the rise of Web 2.0 business models in the mid-2000s, web start-ups were increasingly faced with the challenge of how to motivate users to sign up with the offered service, invite people they know, and interact with their products regularly. They needed new tools for raising engagement.
For instance, in 2007, IBM contracted communication researcher Byron Reeves, who published a white paper on the role of online games for business leadership. In 2008, a question-and-answer platform for software developers titled Stack Overflow was launched using a reputation system with points and badges inspired by the gaming experience of its developers. It quickly gained cachet in the technology industry.
In March 2009, the iPhone app Foursquare debuted at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival and demonstrated that game design elements can drive the initial adoption and retention of users. The following August, Bunchball’s Rajat Paharia registered the domain gamification.com. The video-sharing site Vimeo added a “like” button in November 2005, and Facebook followed suit four years later. Adding a calculus, a playful interaction into the interface, increased the sites’ engagement rates.
Today gamification is a widely adopted technique that is almost seamlessly incorporated into how we engage in various digital scenarios, such as organizational productivity, self-help apps, knowledge retention, employee recruitment and evaluation, physical training, traffic rules learning, and more. Naturally, the biggest adopters of gamification have been marketing agencies; 70 percent of Forbes Global 2000 companies surveyed in 2013 said they planned to use gamification for the purposes of marketing and customer retention.
Gamified shopping experiences are now common online, but companies have also added video game visual components to their brands. Games theorist Ian Bogost writes:
Gamified shopping experiences are now common online, but companies have also added video game visual components to their brands. Games theorist Ian Bogost writes:
Gamification is reassuring. It gives Vice Presidents and Brand Managers comfort: they’re doing everything right, and they can do even better by adding “a games strategy” to their existing products, slathering on “gaminess” like aioli on ciabatta at the consultant’s indulgent sales lunch.
On the other side of the spectrum, many video games now offer a “labor” angle: complete tasks, collect points, solve problems, and grind your way to the next high score. From the farming simulation sensation FarmVille to the modern cult classic Euro Truck Simulator, game companies now unapologetically invite the player to labor all day, and this toil has been embraced by the player base. In November 2022, A Little to the Left, where players tidy shelves or cleaning items and do other organization tasks, was released to rave reviews and branded as the “cosy” game of the year.
The highly successful social simulation series Animal Crossing, launched in 2001, was praised by players for providing them with a sense of security, no matter how unreal. Many reported that completing the tasks gave them a feeling of accomplishment, stability, and safety, and that they found the tasks impossible to resist. To players, this game personified the promise that capitalism made to them: that there will be rewards for their labor.
It is tempting to judge these players as capitalist subjects, doing laborious profit-making exercises for somebody else’s gain. Nonetheless, fans of Stardew Valley (2016) — another staple of the genre — would probably argue that in a world filled with so little certainty and sense of control, the predictable, repetitive results of the actions in these games have a calming effect. And who am I to argue with that?
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